wspohn
Responses from wspohn
| Warm, rich but detailed SS preamp (made you give up tubes) The only solid state preamp I've owned that gave most of what tube preamps offer was a Classe DR-7, but they were rare (100 and something made) and would be hard to find.One was for sale a couple of years ago and I include the URL as the descripti... | |
| will changing to solid-state make the bass in my wilson sophias better at low volume? You are battling against a speaker efficiency of 87 dB vs 92 dB on larger Wilsons, so you need a higher output tube amp to tame the Sophias.I use a 70 wpc tube amp on the more efficient models with no loss of bass control compared to a 300 wpc sol... | |
| Some DACs I am Considering-Any thoughts? I have been quite pleased with the Moon 280D I bought recently. | |
| Does it annoy you when companies don't show the internals of electronics ? Hmm - potted circuits that you can't see into must drive the OP crazy. Wonder if he demanded that the car dealer drop the oil pan for a look-see before he'd buy a car, or asked his spouse to submit whole body X-rays before agreeing to take them on... | |
| Curl or Pass I like both, but IMHO neither attains the level of Curl's older Vendetta design (I don't believe that the parts are available to replicate those, although a variant was used in the CTC Blowtorch preamp. | |
| Living room system: class A or AB amps? Class A amps do sound good very quickly after fire up, and I prefer the ones I have, anyway, to many Class AB amps.The downside is that the smaller versions of my amps put out 25 watts of sound and 300 watts of heat, and power consumption is accor... | |
| For the Audiophile with a taste for good design(looks)....a question. I think that Avalon males some of the most decorative speakers, not to mention generally excellent sound. You probably have to have modern decor for them to fit in, mind you.As for gear, the champagne coloured Conrad Johnsons stuff looks nice wit... | |
| Apogee Scintilla Power There were very few power amps that could drive into 1 ohm back in the day. They included the Adcom GFA-555, and Classe DR3 and DR3 VHC. the rare Belles 'A', the Krell KSA 80 and 100 and a couple more. The original speaker review by Cordesman in ... | |
| Whats your favourite track to play to the non hi-fi visitor? I'll second the SRV Tin Pan Alley cut, and add Riviera Paradise. Either should impress them. Unless they are headbangers who just want to see how much bass your system can produce, in which case get some more discerning friends. | |
| Which tubes are the best? My amp calls for 6550 output tubes so I auditioned them against a couple of other brands. I ended up preferring the Gold Lion KT88s by a significant margin so I bought them. And then I bought a back up set!But that was on my power amp (CJ Premier ... | |
| $10K Budget for Speakers: Martin Logan Masterpiece vs Tannoy The Martin Logans are good sounding speakers but with woofers of a size that they don't do well with low bass, so you'd want a well integrated subwoofer if you like realistic bass levels.The Tannoys will give you very good bass at the cost of redu... | |
| Speaker Positioning The Wilson set up method (referred to in a previous response) is very good - we did mine using a laser range finder to arrange equal angles to each speaker and then calibrate the cant angle of the upper module (mid/highs) which is finely adjustabl... | |
| Audio Research preamps EXCESSIVE OPERATING COSTS Why would anyone waste tube life by leaving units on when not needed?I run tube amplification in my primary system, which is a combined AV system. It is used only for listening as when I am doing video I just move the speaker leads over to a solid... | |
| Is 1990's equipment vintage? Perhaps no parallel, but I own cars that are classic (1950s-early70s - there weren't any later classic 1970s cars after 1972 as the whole decade sucked in the auto area) and first decade 2000s which are now just used cars but not yet classics. Vi... | |
| Why is black so popular for components? Mostly driven by fashion, I think.Back in the 1960/70s silver was big, and then preferences switched to black. I have mostly black with a few CJ pieces that I'd call champagne but almost no silver left in my systems |